Arnel Salvador in Montreal - Philippine workers against Wal-Mart

Workers on picket line in Cavite Export Processing Zone, Philippines

Nous aimerions vous informer de la visite prochaine à Montréal (du 15-21 octobre, 2007) de Arnel V. Salvador, du Workers Assistance Center de Cavite, Philippines.

Arnel fait une tournée à Toronto et Ottawa actuellement, et viendra à Montréal après. Sa visite fera suite au séjour de son collègue, Renato Pambid, parmi nous plus töt cette année, et sera l'occasion pour nous d'avoir des nouvelles fraiches de la lutte en cours chez Chong Won, un fournisseur de Wal-Mart. Vous trouverez ci-joint un bref curriculum vitae de Arnel en anglais.

Arnel attend sa visite avec impatience, et il aimerais bien rencontrer des gens et des organismes intéressés par le travail du WAC à Montréal. Son voyage en Ontario et dans l'ouest du Canada est coordonné par Kairos Canada.

Le Comité de solidarité ouvrière du Centre d'appui aux Philippines aidera à coordonner son séjour à Montréal. On serait heureux d'organiser une rencontre/visite avec Arnel pour vous.

Pour rejoindre les membres du Comité de solidarité ouvrière du CAP-CPC: capcpc@web.ca

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We would like to inform you of the upcoming visit to Montreal (October 15 - 21, 2007) by Arnel V. Salvador from the Workers Assistance Center in Cavite, Philippines.

Arnel has been visiting in Toronto and Ottawa and is now planning to come to our city. He would like to follow up on the trip to Montreal earlier this year by Renato Pambid of the WAC and bring us up-to-date on the ongoing struggle at the Wal Mart supplier, Chong Won. You can find his short curriculum vitae below.

Arnel would be pleased to meet with interested parties during his Montreal trip and is very excited about visiting Quebec. His trip to Ontario and to western Canada is being coordinating by Kairos Canada.

In Montreal the Workers' Committee of the Centre d'appui aux Philippines / Centre for Philippine Concerns (CAP-CPC) will be helping to coordinate his trip. They would be pleased to arrange to have you meet with Arnel.

You can contact the members of the Workers' Committee of the CAP-CPC at capcpc@web.ca
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Arnel Villorente Salvador - Workers Assistance Center

Arnel V. Salvador is a seasoned but low-profile activist in the Southern Tagalog region south of Manila, capital of Philippines. At present, he is the deputy executive director of the Workers Assistance Center, Inc., or WAC since 1998. As deputy executive director, he is in-charge of the whole organizing program of WAC in Cavite and Batangas provinces.

He was the main researcher in a research-study contracted by WAC in 1996 that established and had become a basic data/information about the real working conditions of the workers employed in the Cavite Export Processing Zone, the biggest government-owned and controlled free trade zone in the Philippines. This research provided WAC, which was still in its formative stage then, a basic tool for its education and information services that led to the formation of several workers unions in different export-oriented economic zones inside the province of Cavite.

Prior to his work at WAC for the labor sector, Salvador was the Regional Coordinator of KAPATID, a human rights organizations composed of friends and relatives of political detainees from 1986-87. He was also the Secretary-General of the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace in Southern Tagalog (EMJP-ST), a church-backed human rights and peace organization, from 1988 to 1995.

As a labor rights advocate, he had been invited to speak about the Filipino workers conditions in the free trade zones in some events/gatherings abroad. Last year, he went to the USA on three-week speaking tour with a worker to expose the anti-labor character of the Wal-Mart’s codes of conduct and to gather support for the striking workers of a Wal-Mart supplier in Cavite.